


acknowledgement

by renesaramis



Series: loop!verse [1]
Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Time Fuckery, Time Period: 1973-1981 (Life on Mars), Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:16:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29883762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renesaramis/pseuds/renesaramis
Summary: Gene waits for him.
Relationships: Gene Hunt & Sam Tyler
Series: loop!verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2197176
Kudos: 3





	acknowledgement

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate title: Life On Mars But Gene Hunt Is Self-Aware

Gene waits for him.

Waits nearly a year, actually, which is pretty impressive considering he figured it out within five minutes of meeting him.

Gene Hunt knows too much, and it’s a fact. He can’t do anything about it, much like Sam can’t do anything about the telephone or the test card girl. He doesn’t know if he _wants_ to, given a choice. He knows things about people that they barely know themselves. He knows that Sam Tyler will jump from a building one day, and there will be nothing he or anyone else will be able to do; knows that as much as Annie Cartwright loves Sam, she loves trying to work him out a hell of a lot more.

Gene Hunt knows what, where and when Hyde is. It’s an always. You don’t – _can’t_ – enter Hyde. You only ever _leave_ and talk about it, pretend it’s real and not some grossly mangled metaphor for home.

They’re all from Hyde, in a way.

So Gene fits Sam Tyler in, has to, really, because he’s the glue. He’s Gene’s, and Annie’s, and Chris’s, and Ray’s, each part of him something missing from _them_ , and of course he doesn’t know it, because when do people like him _ever_ understand what they’re worth?

This is Gene Hunt’s world, his team, his fucking _family_ , and he built them up from ashes. Whether they recognise it or not is irrelevant. They would do better to be oblivious.

He waits for Sam.

They don’t speak, not for a moment. Then, Gene reaches out his hands, fumbles with the buttons on Sam’s shirt, blinded by the fog of emotions. He almost snaps, orders him to control himself, but Sam can’t see what he can – and he lays a hand gently on the bandages around his chest.

‘I don’t understand what transgender means, not now, not _yet_ ,’ he explains, voice shaking, because he has to get this right, ‘but I know what _this_ means for you. _To_ you,’ he adds because he feels fear rise beneath his palms, and he tries to ease it back down to wisps, to reassure him that, for all his seventies-man Neanderthal mind, he respects and accepts Sam.

All of him.

How could he not? Sam’s one of them, now. To reject him would be akin to rejecting an arm or a leg, or perhaps something more fatal, like an artery. They’re the heart of this, whatever _this_ is. Collectively they work and live as one. Their existence depends on each other. Gene is Ray is Chris is Annie is Sam is Gene.

One endless, infinite loop.

He knows one day Sam will disappear. Will they follow suit without their glue to keep them all intact? Or will they wander through Manchester, forcibly separated, cracked, tearing apart at the seams?

Sometimes Gene Hunt knows too much. Other times he doesn’t know enough.

But this is his world, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t rule the roost until he physically can’t anymore, and he’ll do what he always has done, what he always _will_.

Gene Hunt will wait for Sam Tyler.


End file.
